Operation Christmas Child once again enjoyed strong support from the community, as students from Mrs. Burfield and Mrs. Mason’s Grade 6 classes at Greentree School contributed 76 shoeboxes filled with gifts for children overseas. The Grade 2 and 3 classes also wrote letters which were included in the boxes. These boxes are in addition to 189 that were collected at Drumheller Community Church. On Monday, November 25 the boxes were picked up and delivered to the shipping depot in Calgary.

The Alberta SPCA took control of about 200 head of livestock Tuesday, December 3 from a farm near Delia.

 The Alberta SPCA was at the property, along with members of the Drumheller RCMP conducting the investigation.

“I can confirm we executed a warrant at a property in Eastern Alberta.” Said communications manager for the Alberta SPCA Dan Kobe. ”We went in with a general warrant to inspect cattle on the property. It was determined that the majority of the animals were in distress and we seized just over 200 animals.”

Constable Jason Girard of the Drumheller RCMP confirmed the police were on scene during the operation to keep the peace and there were no criminal charges from the RCMP stemming from the event.

 Kobe tells the Mail the SPCA investigation is continuing and the condition of the animals is still being determined.

“We don’t want to get into the specifics because that is part of the investigation, but I can confirm there were several dead animals found on the property,” said Kobe.

He explains that The Alberta SPCA has up to six months to lay charges if any are forthcoming. 

“200 is certainly on the larger end of it, but to us it doesn’t matter how many animals there are, if they are in distress we’ll do what we have to do to relieve the stress of the animals,” said Kobe.